WAS 2002 a good year for the internet? It hardly lived up to the heady days of the dotcom boom, but there were some interesting new developments. January began with the launch, amid much hype, of the government's "Let's all Get Online" campaign (www.letsallgeton.gov.uk).

Nearly a year on and little seems to have changed at the site, but at least it shows the government making an effort to encourage more people to use the net.

But a prominent government failure was the 1901 census data, intended to launch (amid even more hype) in late January. The site attracted attention from all over the world and toppled over within hours of being announced.

The census site was simply too popular, and the people behind it had not anticipated that kind of traffic in such a short space of time. They eventually took the site off-line for several months while work was done to make it more robust. You can now access it normally at www.census.pro.gov.uk.

Apple unveiled its gorgeous new iMac computer, the one with the flat screen elevated on a slender steel neck above a space-age dome containing all the brains. It remains one of the most eye-catching and innovative computer designs of all time, and with recent price cuts is more appealing as a home computer.

Search engine Google had its most successful year to date. It launched its hugely successful online laboratory for geek toys (labs.google.com) and its entirely computer-edited news site (news.google.com). In February, the practice of "Googlewhacking" emerged from nowhere to become a popular form of simple, free, online entertainment. See www.unblinking.com for more information.

2002 was the year that digital cameras started to plummet in price. March saw the release of the L'espion, a tiny thing about the size of a matchbox, but capable of snapping really quite decent pictures. You could hook it on your keyring and take it anywhere.

It was followed by a flurry of copycat microcameras, increasingly packed with more features and all available for less than a hundred pounds. In the summer, we saw the very first cameras on mobile phones, and the phrase "picture messaging" began to be heard. It remains something of a geek toy for now, but give it a few months and a hard sell (which is what the phone companies are doing) and it should be all the rage in 2003.

One aspect of picture messaging that doesn't get a lot of publicity is that you can send pictures to any e-mail address, directly from your phone - you don't have to restrict yourself to sending them to other phones.

That means that so long as you have some web space and some simple software, you'll be able to publish a photo diary of your travels and day-to-day life from anywhere.

It could also radically change some aspects of our lives. The chances are that there will be a major event in 2003 (a plane crash, an earthquake, or a riot) where the news will be spread faster by people using picture message mobile phones than it can be by professional broadcasters. An interesting new challenge for the news media to tackle.

The other main development in 2002 was the huge growth of interest in wireless and broadband internet connectivity.

Finally, after years of dallying, the UK's broadband market was opened up to commercial sellers at a reasonable price, and BT put some real effort into upgrading a large number of local telephone exchanges so that they could handle the load.

Now broadband is relatively easy to find, at competitive prices, in most cities and large towns. The rural situation is quite different, though, so there remains a lot of work to be done.